Assignment 2 Exploratory Data Analysis

Max Katz-Christy — maxtkc@mit.edu

Subtheme: Exploring corporate owners and evictions

Overall Analysis Questions

  1. How is the amount of corporate ownership changing in Boston?
    2. My parents own a home in Cambridge that they bought 35+ years ago. My dad is a high school teacher and my mom runs a non profit. Had they moved there more recently, they would have no ability to buy a home in the same area. I really like living in Boston, and I'm curious if I can work the job I like or if I have to prioritize income to be able to afford a home.
  2. Does a rise in corporate ownership correspond with a drop in owner occupied property rates?
    3. I lived in Central Square for a year before moving to MIT. My landlord was able to respond quickly to my requests because he lived upstairs from me. Having a physical presence meant that he could not ignore me, and he cared who he was taking into his house, so I could trust that I'd have good housemates. I'm curious if there is any causal relationship between corporate ownership rates and owner occupancy rates, because if this is the case, having disincentives to corporate ownership of properties could make some sense.
  3. How does Boston being filled with colleges affect corporate ownership and owner occupied rates?
    4. Boston is notoriously driven by the student population. Even the housing contract dates are almost completely aligned to the school schedule, causing an almost city-wide moving day every year as college is starting. I know many college students and graduates who have ended up disliking their corporate landlords. However, these students often don't have as much of a choice, as price is the primary consideration. Are corporate owners targeting college students, knowing that they will be able to survive some bad situations for the benefit of cheaper rent. They are also only there for the school year, so they can raise prices on their properties more easily.

Discoveries & Insights

This chart shows the owner occupancy rate in Boston neighborhoods from 2004 to 2024. While most of the rates are slightly decreasing, there are a few with very interesting patterns. Many of the ones which were lower in 2004 dropped significantly over the course of the 20 years, such as Fenway. South Boston Waterfront is another interesting case, where the rate of owner occupied properties jumps to almost double in 2014, and then drops back down by 2024. This is likely due to the heavy amount of development in Seaport, so the number of residential properties has changed significantly in this time period.
This figure shows the rate of corporate ownership over time. Almost all of the neighborhoods follow the same path here, rising from a rate of under 0.15 in 2004 to rates almost as high as 0.4 and no neighborhood under 0.1 in 2024. South Boston Waterfront has a massive spike, likely owing to the number of luxury apartments and developments in Seaport. While all neighborhoods increase, we can see a steep climb from Charlestown in 2024.
Boston is filled with colleges and this has a significant effect on the housing market. According to the census, there are eight neighborhoods that have college students. Comparing rates of people in college and rates of corporate owned properties in 2024 gives us an understanding of the whether or not corporate owners are marketing properties towards college students or college students prefer corporate owned properties. We can't necessarily tell the difference between the two of these. In the chart, we can see that the neighborhoods with the highest rates of people in college also have the highest rates of corporate owned properties.
Similar to the prior figure, we can look at how college compares to rates of owner occupied properties in a neighborhood. In 2024, the rates of people in college are higher where the rates of owner occupied properties are lower. This makes some sense, as students don't tend to own and occupy their own properties.
By dividing the corporate ownership rate by the owner occupied rate, we can see both how corporately they are owned and how owner occupied they are in one number. Because this reacts to changes in both, we can observe how they all go up over the past 20 years.
Another way we can look at both figures together is by graphing both on top of each other. Unfortunately, graphing them all would be too difficult to read, so just the top four most corporately owned (in 2024) neighborhoods are shown. This chart allows for examining and contrasting the year to year changes to both the corporate ownership rate and the owner occupied rate of a neighborhood. Through this, we can see that they are not always dependent on each other. For instance, in Boston's downtown, from 2016 to 2021, the corporate ownership rate quickly climbed while the owner occupied property rate only slightly declined.
We can look at the derivative of the previous chart so we can see if the changes are inverses of each other. Again, the lines are somewhat inverted from each other, but there are many exceptions, even places where the corporate ownership rate moves in the same direction as the owner occupied rate.
This chart shows the changes of all of the neighborhoods over 20 years, ignoring any changes in the middle. It is good for showing a larger picture of how Boston has changed. The corporate ownership rate has gone up at least 0.1 across every neighborhood, and while the owner occupancy rate has gone up in 3 neighborhoods, in most neighborhoods it has steeply dropped.

Summary

The city of Boston has seen a huge growth in corporate ownership and drop in owner occupancy rates. Neighborhoods with college students have felt these affects more significantly than neighborhoods without students. We can't tell from the data if the students cause the neighborhood to change in this way, or if these changes affect the students decision to live there, or if it is simply a correlation with what kinds of areas students look for. It also doesn't necessarily seem that the changes in corporate ownership can be directly tied to changes in owner occupancy in a neighborhood. This suggests that there is another classification of properties that properties are moving between. It would also be interesting to look at the total number of properties and the year to year changes in number of properties, because neighborhoods like seaport might be better described by this than by the rates, due to large amounts of development of new corporately owned properties. One follow up question that arises from this data analysis is how does evictions relate to this change from owner occupancy to corporate ownership? Who is being evicted? Additionally, it may be useful to know property values and income levels to compose a more economics based analysis of the change in home ownership. Further, what is the way that someone becomes and owner occupier of a property? How is the route to this ability changing? Who is able to own and occupy a house?